SEOUL, South Korea — In a new dare to the United States and its allies, North Korea has notified the United Nations agency responsible for navigation safety that it is planning to launch a long-range rocket this month to put a satellite into orbit.

The agency, the International Maritime Organization, said Tuesday that it had received a notification from the North Korean authorities of a multistage rocket launch between the hours of 7 a.m. and noon local time, on an as-yet unspecified day between Monday and Feb. 25. An agency spokeswoman, Natasha Brown, said North Korea’s notification described the payload as an Earth observation satellite it called Kwangmyongsong, which translates as Lodestar.

If the launch goes as planned, the notification said, the rocket’s first stage will fall in waters off the west coast of South Korea and the second stage in waters east of the Philippines.

The notification followed warnings to North Korea advising against a launch from the U.S. and allied nations, which consider such a step a cover for developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that can deliver a nuclear bomb. Under a series of UN Security Council resolutions, North Korea is barred from developing nuclear weapons or ballistic missile technologies.

The United States, which has been helping draft a new Security Council resolution aimed at penalizing North Korea since its most recent nuclear test nearly a month ago, reacted angrily to news of a missile launch.

“This latest announcement further underscores the need for the international community to send the North Koreans a swift, firm message that its disregard — that their disregard for UN Security Council obligations will not be tolerated,” said the State Department spokesman, John Kirby.

AP Photo / Ahn Young-joon

In Seoul, Cho Tae-yong, deputy chief of the presidential office of national security, warned that North Korea would have to pay “a harsh price” if it did not cancel the launch. He called the North Korean plan a “direct challenge to the international community.”

The North’s announcement also complicated the mission of a senior Chinese envoy, Wu Dawei, who arrived in Pyongyang on the same day it was made. Beijing has been insisting on patience and dialogue as better ways to resolve disputes with the North.

North Korea had notified the International Maritime Organization of some earlier rocket tests.

Another UN agency, the International Telecommunication Union, said Tuesday that it also had been notified by the North Koreans of an impending launch, but without specifying a date range. An agency spokesman, Sanjay Acharya, said it had been advised by Kim Kwang Chol, the North Korean minister of posts and telecommunications, that the satellite was designed to function for four years.

North Korea asserts that its rocket program is peaceful, intended to launch satellites to gather data for weather forecasting and for other scientific purposes. But after the country put a Kwangmyongsong satellite into orbit by using its Unha-3 rocket in December 2012, the U.S. worried that in the process, the North was also moving toward acquiring the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on a long-range ballistic missile.

That Unha-3, a three-stage rocket, blasted off from the Tongchang-ri launching site near the country’s northwestern border with China.

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U.S. and South Korean officials have been monitoring the site for signs of preparations for another rocket launch, especially after North Korea conducted the last nuclear test, its fourth, on Jan. 6.

The U.S. and its allies are working to muster international support for a new Security Council resolution imposing another round of sanctions against the North. They have expressed concern that the North might attempt a long-range rocket test in retaliation.

In a report published last Thursday on 38 North, a U.S. website specializing in North Korea, Jack Liu, an expert on North Korea’s rocket program, said it appeared to be “in the early stages of preparation for launching a space launch vehicle.” He used recent satellite images of the site for his analysis.

South Korean intelligence officials said that in its 2012 rocket launch, North Korea was actually testing a design for a ballistic missile that could eventually fly more than 6,200 miles with a warhead of about 1,100 to 1,300 pounds, putting the West Coast of the U.S. within range.

North Korea recently renovated its Tongchang-ri site to be able to launch a rocket more powerful than any tested so far.

North Korea is preparing to celebrate the Feb. 16 birthday of Kim Jong Il, the father of the current leader, Kim Jong Un, and a large congress of the ruling Workers’ Party in May. Some analysts say that Kim wanted to show off advances in his nuclear and long-range missile programs before those events.